NovelSisters

watching, reading, and writing stories

Oct 28

Need a laugh or need connection?

by lydiamhill

 

Laughter, Laugh, Fun, Mom, Daughter, Teenager, Family

Image Source: https://pixabay.com/en/laughter-laugh-fun-mom-daughter-775062/

So life isn’t always easy, And sometimes we feel worn out and tired, overwhelmed and frustrated, or just apathetic about everything. This past weekend I was feeling some of this, and then I came across some videos on You tube that lifted my spirits and just gave me a reason to laugh.

Here’s one that I hope will make you laugh too.

But one reason why I continued to watch these videos and share them with the people around me wasn’t just because they made me laugh. A lot of things on You Tube are funny and most of the time I watch a video I don’t share it with others, I just enjoy it, then move on with my life.

But I think these videos occasionally resonate with something deeper that every person longs for: connection, friendship, relationship, and belonging.

Here’s a few videos that I think capture this:

After watching these videos I was suddenly very thankful for the relationships I have in my life, for the people that tell me happy birthday, for the people who welcome me home after a trip and celebrate life’s big milestones.

And I think that’s what we all crave. Going through a tough time in life is inevitable, it happens eventually to everyone. But when we have people who truly care about us and lift us up when we fall down, then it isn’t so hard. I kind of wonder if the saying shouldn’t be “laughter is the best medicine,” but rather “connection is the best medicine.” When we are connected with someone, and can laugh or even cry with someone, that’s what really heals our ailment.

I think this is a big reason why going to a church is important. I know some people think it’s not for them, maybe they still follow God but they’d rather do it alone, or just don’t have time for all those “church activities.” But I’ve found that connecting with a church, and really getting to know people and spend time with them, brings a richness to life that no money could buy.

I don’t want to be preachy but I just realized today how important deep lasting relationships are, and how much we all need and long for them.

Hope you enjoyed my ramblings or at least had a laugh at the You Tube videos, leave a comment if you want.

Uncategorized

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Oct 22

NaNoWriMo

by lydiamhill

Image Source: http://nanowrimo.org/

As November rolls closer, I’ve come to decision time. Should I participate in NaNoWriMo again, or take a break? For those who don’t know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It is basically a contest or challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

Last year I did it for the first time. It was a a blast. Sure there were times of stress, or having no clue what to write about. There were times I just stared at my computer screen with no clue what to do. I think I even had to write on an ancient laptop for part of it because mine had crashed. But still I look back on that time as a great experience.

But this year, I don’t have an idea to write about. Instead I see a pile of old work that needs revising. Should I really start a new project that will also need editing? I’ve toyed with the idea of making any revisions I make to an old novel count towards my goal of 50,000 words. But I know I don’t need to write a whole book with my revisions, I just need a couple of new chapters and some changes in the ones I’ve already written.

However, as I was glancing through blog posts today, I saw that one brave writer is going to try NaNoWriMo for the first time this year. And it got me thinking; yeah I have plenty of excuses, but the main reason to do this is because it actually gives me a reason to sit down and write. So maybe I’m not writing a new story, maybe I don’t have a detailed plan, but I can still join in with all the other writers out there and actually give a big effort for one month. And who knows what will happen.

So that’s my plan for now. I may end up with several short stories, and some new chapters for my unfinished book, or I may find a whole new novel developing, but I’m not going to make excuses and not write anything. The least I can to is try.

Any other writers out there who are on the fence about joining in, I’d encourage you to hop on the writing train. And if you’re that person who’s never finished a novel but wants to, I’d encourage you to give NaNoWriMo a try.

Writing

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Oct 8

Art and Asking Questions

by lydiamhill

Exhibition, Art Gallery, Gallery, Arts, Art, Painting

Image Source: https://pixabay.com/en/exhibition-art-gallery-gallery-arts-362163/

Recently I went to an art museum with a friend and as we were walking around, looking at the exhibits, my friend asked “Why is this considered art?” I’ve been out of college for over a year now and my brain sought frantically for some explanation from my professors about modern art’s purpose. I mumbled something about art being made by an artist because it was important to them in some way, and explained that maybe the artist was exploring something, but that an audience might not understand all of why they did it.

Anyway, fast forward a few weeks and I came across this You Tube video.

After watching the video I thought back to that conversation with my friend. While I don’t think art’s purpose is to make people better at noticing little details for their careers, I do think it has something to do with asking questions.

It could be that the artist is asking questions, and exploring answers through their work. But whatever the artist’s purpose, it seems like the viewers of art always ask questions. And that isn’t limited to the art you see in a museum. People ask what the author meant when he or she wrote such and such. And we usually have to come up with an answer for ourselves for why things are the way they are. Even children ask questions; from a young age they start to ask the “why” question about almost everything. And in some ways it’s not the answer that’s important, it’s the curiosity.

It’s easy to go through life oblivious to what’s around you, just going through the motions, doing what you’ve always done. Once you “grow up” and leave school, it feels like you should know everything now, you’re an adult. But even adults still need to ask questions.
So maybe that’s part of what art does, it reminds us that we don’t have everything figured out, we don’t understand everything, but we can still learn and explore and ask questions.

I’m not sure if that makes sense, but I guess the reason this has been rolling around in my head is because of something going on in my home town right now. A large group of churches has joined together to start exploring several big questions. Here’s a link to the page if you’re interested: http://www.exploregod.com/

For the past several weeks I’ve been talking about deep questions like “Why is there pain and suffering in the world?” or “Is there a purpose to life?” And the goal behind these questions isn’t so much to give a definite answer, but to start discussion. It’s kind of like the artwork in a museum. It doesn’t say why the artist made it on the little description but it starts a discussion. It makes us start asking more questions, start exploring, and maybe start learning something in the process.

Art Stories

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Sep 24

The Hobbit and Movie Adaptations

by lydiamhill

The Hobbit text

I’ve been rereading the Hobbit recently. As you might recall, right before I took my trip to Haiti I watched the movie and got all excited about going on my own adventure. Well now that I’m back, I’ve decided to read the book again. I haven’t read it in years and there are many parts that I had completely forgotten about. Reading it is getting me excited for the next movie in Peter Jackson’s trilogy.

Speaking of movies based on books, I’ve always been interested in film adaptations. It’s an interesting process for whoever is writing the screenplay, because you can’t take the actual book and make it a movie, you have to take out parts, change things and make it flow as a movie. No audience would sit through a ten hour movie, so changes have to be made. However, the changes made are very noticeable to an audience that loves the original story. I think it takes a brave person to turn a book into a movie; you could get a lot of praise or a ton of criticism.

I find it odd that some filmmakers choose to add in some scenes that are not based on the book. It seems more logical to me to use the book’s material first and only cut out what is not necessary, not create new scenes that have no basis in the book. However, I can’t complain too much, because there are times that I really enjoy what the filmmakers have changed. For example in the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, a scene is added with Aragorn getting separated from his friends. This scene has no basis in the book, but I love it. It adds suspense and drama to the story and honestly it’s one of my favorite scenes to watch.

But most of the time when filmmakers do this I am angry. One of the best examples of this comes from the first Percy Jackson movie. I had read the book before I saw the movie, so I knew all about the crazy adventure that had happened in the book. And there were a lot of things wrong with the movie, but one thing that seemed worse than the rest was adding a pointless battle scene at the Parthenon in Nashville. It had no basis in the book whatsoever and took time away so that other more interesting plot points had to be left out.

Although there is some fault to a filmmakers decisions, I’ve also found that I am partly to blame for my reaction to a movie that is based on a book. I’ve found that depending on how recently I’ve read a book, I will either enjoy or not enjoy the movie adaptation. It seems that if I either have no clue what the storyline is supposed to be, or have read the book so long ago that I can’t remember details, that I thoroughly enjoy the movie adaptation. However, if I read the book right before seeing the movie, all I can see is all the changes that were made and feel upset at the “good” parts that were left out, or the things that were changed.

A perfect example of this comes from my experience watching the Chronicles of Narnia movies. I can’t remember exactly when I read each book, but I have read them all now, and seen all of the movies that have recently come out. However my responses to the second and third movies were extremely different based largely on the fact of when I had read the book it was based on.

When I saw Prince Caspian, the second movie, I had recently read the book and was upset by even little things like the hair color of characters that I had pictured differently. I noticed every little thing that was changed, like added battle scenes, and was left upset that the movie didn’t live up to my expectations.

However, when the Voyage of the Dawn Treader came out a few years later, I watched it without rereading the book. I could only remember a few relevant parts from the book, all of which were included in the movie. So I ended up loving the movie, the message, and found the whole experience very enjoyable. In fact I felt at the time that this third movie was the best of the three. However, when I discussed the movie with a friend, I found that she had not enjoyed it. She kept pointing out little changes that I hadn’t noticed and complaining that it wasn’t like the book so she didn’t like it.

In light of this, my new plan for seeing movie adaptations is to either watch the movie before I read the book, so I can enjoy both, or wait to reread the book until after I’ve seen the movie. That way the storyline isn’t too fresh in my head. I guess I should have waited to reread the Hobbit until all three movies have been released, but I couldn’t wait. Oh well, hopefully I’ll still enjoy the movie and not be too critical of the filmmaker’s decisions.

So what’s your favorite movie adaptation and why? Or what book would you like to see turned into a movie? Leave a comment below.

Books Movies

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Sep 11

Lessons from Haiti: Coming Home

by lydiamhill

Well this is the last post about Haiti, or at least the last one planned. I learned so much from the trip that I might end up doing some other little posts about it, however, not for awhile. So here we go!

Day 9: Coming Home

girlsSo Saturday morning we got up super early to catch our plane home. We had some difficulties. One of our team members started feeling really sick, and we thought we might need to call a doctor. But we prayed and God provided strength so that we were able to make it onto the airplane and to Florida.

We decided to get a hotel room for a few hours and just chill till our flight to Texas. It was nice to sit back and eat pizza, play card games, and have a nap. But I did feel a bit of culture shock as we sat in the lobby with the TV on. I suddenly realized I hadn’t watched any shows or commercials for a whole week and I hadn’t missed it at all. It was kind of nice to get away. But now we were back in the States and things were getting back to “normal.” I had to laugh when everyone got on their cell phones once we landed. After being gone for a week, messages had to be answered, Facebook statuses updated, and pictures posted. We had reentered the world of technology.

Despite this bombardment of 21st century, I still had several long plane rides to sit back and digest what I had learned on the trip. I actually enjoyed a really long conversation with one of the girls about what we had learned or heard from God. I also got to journal a lot about all that had happened and what I had seen God do. I think this time to digest what had happened prepared me for coming home, for writing these blog posts, and for sharing what actually happened on this trip and how it had changed me.

As I read through my journal entry for Saturday, I noticed one lesson that I haven’t yet blogged about. I think it came as a result of someone’s testimony. (by the way we did some more of those during our layovers in the airport). Here’s the lesson: Just Love! I was blown away with the testimony of one person who had felt God’s love whenever he was in Christian community and he experienced a deep longing for that love. He was an atheist who could argue about every point of theology and cut to pieces people’s reasoning, but he couldn’t deny love. I guess a lot of times I think people need to understand the gospel, or need to be convinced of it’s truth. But what they really need is to experience God’s love. I guess that’s why Jesus said “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Matthew 13:34-35

So there you go, my last lesson from Haiti was to simply show love. Or maybe it was that if you’re going to learn anything, you need to stop and take time to reflect and digest what has happened. Otherwise everything is just a blur. Either way, I learned something valuable.

Well I hope you enjoyed this blog series as much as I have. Feel free to leave comments or ask questions.

Haiti Stories

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Sep 10

Lessons from Haiti: Finding the Good

by lydiamhill

I’m coming down to the end of this blog series. Friday was our last full day in Haiti, so after this post I’ll only have one more! Wow! Well let’s get started.

Day 8: Finding the Good

taptap

This day was very different from any of the other days in Haiti. Our work projects were pretty much over, and there were ideas of doing more vacation-like activities; like climbing the mountain next to the camp, visiting an old fort nearby, or going to the beach again. The night before, several people had planned on getting up super early and climbing the mountain. I was surprised that all of the girls in our cabin wanted to do it. I didn’t feel much like getting up early, and I said I wouldn’t go, but after a short night sleep, I awakened with a strong longing to not miss out. So I got up with everyone else and went to the pavilion to wait for the mountain guide.

We sat, and waited, and sat some more and waited some more. But nothing happened. The sun began to rise, the animals began to make their morning noises, but still no guide came. My excitement dimmed and the thought of returning to bed became more and more attractive. Finally I gave up and said I was going back to sleep. I found out later that only a few people actually went up the mountain, and most just climbed the shorter hill where the cross stood. So I didn’t feel too bad about sleeping a couple more hours, but there was still a small sense of regret that I had missed out. In addition to this regret I started to feel a little sick. It wasn’t horrible, but it was enough to make it hard to enjoy my last day on the island.

And this is where the choice came in. I think everyone has a choice about how they view their situation. A lot of “satisfaction” or “enjoyment” I think, comes not from literal circumstances, but our attitude towards them. Even though I didn’t feel great and I had missed out on something fun, I was still able to “enjoy” the day. I got to spend time with people I cared about. I got to hear more testimonies from our group that gave me a deeper awareness of how much God can change a life. I even got to spend more time with the little girl who had helped me paint during the week. She gave me a small seashell to keep, and because it was from her, I still treasure it.

Because I didn’t focus on the “bad,” the “disappointments,” the “pain,” I was still able to enjoy the day. One of my favorite memories from that day was just sitting on the front porch of our cabins: singing songs, talking, and suggesting good books to read. It was a simple time of community, with no schedule, no work project, and no worries.

God also blessed me by putting people around me that were also looking for the good in each circumstance instead of complaining about each change or disappointment. In fact, the group even prayed for me to start feeling better. Even though I wasn’t instantly healed, I did feel blessed and loved because of their prayers. When we did go to the beach later that afternoon, our plans got changed; instead of going to a secluded island, we ended up staying on a rough and rocky beach. But even though the group could have focused on what we had missed out on, we instead found joy in our current circumstance. A few people started wandering down the beach and ended up finding some awesome shells to keep as souvenirs. And a few people went body-surfing on the strong waves with the kids. I even tried making a sand/rock castle. Oh, and we got to ride a tap tap for the first time! That was fun.

So even though the last day wasn’t exactly what we had planned, and even though I felt sick during parts of it, because God gave me the grace to focus on the good things, I still had a wonderful day.

I’ll leave you with this verse, which has been on my mind the past few days:

“Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe.” -Philippians 2:14-15 NIV

Haiti Stories

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Sep 9

Lessons from Haiti: A Day of Blessings

by lydiamhill

It’s a good thing I’m only a few days away from finishing this series on my mission trip to Haiti. It’s only been a few weeks, but details are starting to disappear from my memory. So let’s go on to the last work day of the trip.

Day 7: A Day of Blessings

cross finished frandy Peter marc
Even though this was the last “work” day, we actually had a lot of time for relationship building and meaningful conversations which resulted in a lot of blessings. In the morning we were able to hear the story of Jacob’s Well camp from the missionary Gerson. We also went hiking up the mountain and saw a nice view of the valley. I know there were a few work projects going on during the day. I was still finishing up the painting of the Ciel FM radio logo. It was quite entertaining to hear the Haitians in the camp say “Ciel FM” every time they walked by. But the one thing I will always remember from this day is our conversations with Frandy, Peter Marc, and Gerson. I’ll start with Frandy.

Frandy was an interpreter for us during the week. He was more involved with the fence project than my painting project, but we had still gotten to know each other fairly well since he is also an artist. In fact, the conversation I’m talking about happened while he was showing off his artwork for us to buy. As people were picking out bracelets and paintings or t-shirts to purchase, Frandy began to tell us how blessed and encouraged he was by our presence. We were surprised and encouraged by his comment and asked if he told every group the same thing. He said no. I was surprised. As we conversed further, we decided that because some of the other groups were quite large, it was harder to build close, encouraging relationships. But it was good to know that our group had not been a burden to our interpreter, but an encouragement. Most of us even friended him on facebook once we got home.

It was such a blessing to me, to know that our group had been a blessing to Frandy and that he wanted us to know that. Our next conversation, that I don’t want to forget, is with Peter Marc.

Throughout the week we had been sharing our testimonies with each other, but on this evening, we invited Peter Mark to join us and share with us his testimony. It was such a blessing for me to hear how God was working in his life and how he had chosen to follow God. He simplified the Christian walk so well, he simply follows God where he leads, whether that’s moving from Porta Prince to Limbe, or telling his congregation about the freedom in Christ. He expressed the gospel so clearly. Peter Marc said people ask him “why are you so happy, and how can I be free from spiritual oppression too?” Peter Marc’s only answer is Jesus.

Peter Marc’s testimony was a real encouragement to me. He reminded me that my life isn’t that complicated. Just like Peter Marc; my purpose, my mission, my meaning in life comes from simply following Jesus.

Lastly, I wanted to share a story that Gerson told our group. Even though this conversation happened in the morning, I wanted to share it last, because it’s my favorite story. This is the story of the cross at Jacob’s Well camp. When Gerson wanted to put a cross on the hill beside the camp, God provided by having the whole community help him take the heavy cross to the top of a hill. And once it was standing up there, people from the community began to ask him, “What does this white cross mean?” or “What does it symbolize?” You see, in the Haiti culture there are a few different crosses: the black voodoo cross, and the Catholic cross with Jesus’s dead body hanging on it. Both of these crosses symbolize oppression and slavery to the people. But Gerson told the people that this simple white cross meant freedom.

In the end, this day was very encouraging to me as a believer. It showed me that there are hidden blessings in everyday conversations and that no matter if I’m in America, Haiti, or somewhere else; the gospel doesn’t change. It is declaring the good news that knowing Jesus brings freedom.

Haiti Stories

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Sep 5

Lessons from Haiti: Reinforced Lessons and Growing Confidence

by lydiamhill

So I’m back from my most recent trip and it’s time to finish up my lessons from Haiti blog posts. I hope you’ve enjoyed these as much as I have. I only have a few days left to blog about, so I hope you enjoy them.

Day 6: Reinforced Lessons and Growing Confidence

So this was Wednesday. The week was already half over. This day really just reinforced several things I’d already been learning about prayer, unity, relationship, and Christ’s Church. In the end, these reinforced lessons built my confidence in God.

rocksThis was another work day, and although I thought I was done with the manual labor part of the trip and could just stick to painting, God had other plans. After breakfast the whole team was called together to help haul rocks up the hill. Now these weren’t little pebbles or hand sized stones, these were big, heavy, rocks. We could only fit two, or maybe three in a large bucket to pass down the line. After several buckets, your arms got tired, and your back might get stiff if you happened to be someone on the stairs, or a steeper part of the hill. But it wasn’t tiring work, because we were working as a team. We helped each other and sent messages of encouragement down the line, along with the rocks. Even my little painting helper and her cousins wanted to be part of the work, so they jumped in the line and tried to help carry rocks too. Like I said, the lessons I had learned already were being reinforced. God has placed us in a body, and with everyone working together, a lot can be achieved.

20130807-145519-DSC_6311I was also reminded of the importance of relationship later in the day. After lunch we got to go to the village church for worship, and I decided to bring my little notepad along. I ended up drawing little sketches of animals for all the kids at the church. It was so much fun to see their smiling faces. I was literally surrounded by children who either wanted a drawing, or just wanted to watch the lines connect and become an animal. This was my last interaction with the village kids and it was very precious to me. I know I couldn’t give them much, but what I could give, God used to bring joy. In essence, I relearned that relationships matter a lot, even more than food, or money, or finishing a project.

guitarDuring the worship time at the church we were able to learn a song in Creole and sing it all together. It was so good to actually know what I was singing and what it meant. We even copied down the words and taught the song to our home congregation in Texas when we got home. That song, at least for me, symbolized the unity of Christ’s church and how we can all worship God, no matter what language we speak.

muralI also got to see God answer many more prayers this day. Some of them may seem like little things, but they brought so much encouragement to me and our group, that they were significant. We again prayed for the radio transmitter when it stopped working, and God made it start working again. And when my mom and I were trying to stencil in letters for the radio logo, there was a storm. We had waited all day for it to get dark, so we could actually see the projector’s image, and now it was raining. Our group prayed and then offered to hold a tarp over the projector so we could still do the work that night. God stopped the rain, and brought it down to an occasional drizzle and our team faithfully held the projector in place and covered it with a tarp. God provided the right weather, and when we finished we sat back down, under the pavilion. As we began to share more touching testimonies in the group and continue to grow closer to each other, the rain came again. God had provided.

As I read through my journal entry from that day, I noticed one of my prayers to God was expressing a deeper trust in God. Before this trip I’d been worrying a lot about where my life was headed and what job I was supposed to be pursuing. I had a lot of questions, but on this day, I had a lot of trust. I could see how God had provided over and over again on the trip and I realized that I didn’t have to worry on the trip, or at home. Whether it was equipment not working, or bad weather, God could handle it. And He can also handle my problems at home just as easily.

Haiti Stories

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Aug 27

Lessons from Haiti: The Importance of Relationship

by lydiamhill

I hope you’ve enjoyed these lessons from my trip to Haiti. This will actually be my last post for awhile. I’ll be on a trip for a week and won’t have much time for blogging. But when I return, I’ll finish out the Lessons from Haiti series. Thank you for your patience! I feel like I’m leaving out a lot of important details from the week in Haiti, but it’s hard to summarize everything that happened into a short blog post. Maybe I’ll have to do some extra posts later about other things that happened, like climbing the hill next to camp and stargazing.

But enough of that, let’s talk about Tuesday.

Day 5: The Importance of Relationship

20130806-093955-DSC_6061 20130806-110009-DSC_6074 Deborah 2 Deborah

This day taught me over and over how important relationship is, not only with other people, but with God. We’ll just start at the beginning. Tuesday morning I began working on my project (the logo of the radio station) or really just priming the walls for the logo. But as I began to work, a little girl who was staying at the camp with her relatives came to watch. It didn’t take long for her to pick up a brush and start mimicking what we were doing. Now keep in mind that it was hard to communicate. I think I’ve said several times that I know little to no Creole. So all I could do was point, nod and say wi, or shake my head and say no. I wasn’t sure how much help the young girl could be to the project, but as we worked her smile reminded me that the reason we were there was not just to finish some project, but to build relationships. And so, to remind me of how much more important relationships are, God gave me a little girl to paint with for the rest of the week.

And it’s not just people that we need relationships with; God is our heavenly Father and we need to be in a relationship with Him. As more frustrations arose that day and we cried to Him in prayer, I saw God’s loving fatherly response. For example, one of my teammates came up to me and told me that the radio station was not transmitting and they couldn’t figure out what the problem was. So we stopped and prayed that God would fix it. Not five minutes later the radio station was broadcasting! I felt so overwhelmed with God’s love and how He will take care of our needs right away and not delay.

That evening we went to another revival meeting at the village church and God broke down the barriers that had been separating us from the Haitian believers. I saw this most clearly through a young woman sitting a few rows in front of me. She noticed that me and a friend were trying to sing along with the music and she started mouthing the words to us and making little hand motions so we could understand what the song meant.

Then one of our team members got up and shared his testimony with the congregation. He told everyone that he felt like he’s coming home when he goes on mission trips because his ‘family’ is in these small remote churches. The pastor said he was trying to teach his congregation the same thing and God was using us to reinforce the idea that we are a family in Christ.

And lastly, we ended the day by sitting in a circle on the pavilion and listening to more testimonies from the group. It was such a good bonding experience that really forced the relationships within the group to go deeper. And the night ended with one team member praying a prayer of thanksgiving for each team member on the trip. He summarized so perfectly what each person brought to the group and encouraged us all that we were meant to be there and our presence was making a difference.

God was growing relationships within the team, within the community, and with Himself. This day was a beautiful lesson in the value God puts on relationship.

Haiti Stories

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Aug 26

Lessons from Haiti: The Body of Christ at Work

by lydiamhill

Hello blog readers, I’m still reviewing my trip to Haiti, and all the lessons God taught me while I was there. We’ve made it through the first few days of the trip and are currently on Monday, the first workday of the trip. Hope you enjoy!

Day 4: The Body of Christ at Work

Haiti Soccer 1150335_10201667348269373_1188384740_n

So far on my journey, I’d felt that I was mostly receiving things. I was given delicious food, time with people, joy, even several valuable lessons from God about prayer and the unity of His church. And, I’m a little embarrassed to admit this, but our team had spent the previous afternoon at the beach. But it was a Sunday, a day of rest, and we were recovering from all the traveling. Still it didn’t feel quite right.

Thus Monday morning started with a new kind of energy; finally we would be able to work, to do something productive or beneficial, to give something back. In a sense, this is what you go into a mission trip expecting to do, and it felt odd that it wasn’t until Day 4 of our adventure, that the “real work” was starting.

Eagerly we awoke at 5:30am to begin helping with the soccer ministry in the village. We all carried bags stuffed full of soccer balls, cleats, and uniforms to the wide field outside the church. However, once we had handed out the equipment, most of us ended up standing around with not much to do. I’ve never played soccer, so I felt a bit useless as I watched the training begin. I ended up trying to interact with a few of the children from the village along with a few other girls from our group. We couldn’t say much, but we were still able to laugh with the kids.

Soon the training ended and we packed everything back up and headed back to the camp, which is called Jacob’s Well. (I’m tired of calling it the camp, so we’ll refer to it as Jacob’s Well from now on). We ate some breakfast and then began on a fencing project. I didn’t feel like I was doing a lot of work. I mean I carried a few cement blocks, or passed some buckets full of cement down the line, but mostly I was standing around, not knowing what to do, or taking a water break. The most beneficial thing I did was remind other people to drink water so no one got overheated.

So far I had felt pretty inadequate, like I wasn’t very useful for any of the projects going on in Haiti. But as we took a break for lunch, I looked at what the team as a whole had accomplished and realized just how much God can do with very little. I didn’t feel like I had contributed much to the fence, but there it was getting longer and put together. It was a lesson in God’s provision. Even if I didn’t know the first thing about building a fence, God had provided other team members that did, and he used the whole team’s effort to accomplish something I couldn’t have done alone.

Thankfully after lunch, I was able to start work on a painting project that is more in my field of expertise. But I’ll never forget that God uses a body, of different people, with different skills to accomplish His work. We all have purpose, we all have value, and we all can be used by God.

Haiti Stories

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